Using the simulation method for modelling a manufacturing system of predictive maintenance

Abstract

The Industry 4.0 concept assumes the implementation of predictive maintenance as an integral part of manufacturing systems. The parallel-serial manufacturing system includes groups of redundant resources. In the case of damage or malfunction, one or other of them could complete manufacturing operations. In this paper, an analysis of the performance and average lifespan of the products of the parallel-serial manufacturing system is presented, for different methods of material flow control. The parallel-serial manufacturing system is considered where the availability of resources and buffer capacity is the input value and the throughput and average lifespan of the products, that is, the time that their details remain in the system, is the output value. The performance of the system is analysed, using different dispatching rules which are allocated to the manufacturing resources. The simulation model of the system is created using Tecnomatix Plant Simulation.